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JOHN A LOWELL & CO, BOSTON,

REMARKS

OF

DAVID F. BARRY^s-

President of the Common Council

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

MEMBERS OF THE COMMON COUNCIL

ON THE OCCASION OF THE

ORGANIZATION OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT

JANUARY 5, 1891

BOSTON

PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE COMMON COUNCIL

1891

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ROCKWELL

CHURCHILL

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CITY PRI NTERS
BOSTON

55874

CITY OF BOSTON.

In Common Council, April 16, 1891.

Ordered , That the Superintendent of Printing be authorized to have
printed and bound for the use of the President of the Common Council,
fifty copies of the remarks made by the latter in assuming his office on
Inauguration Day; the expense attending the same to be charged to
the Contingent Fund of the Common Council.

Passed in Common Council, April 16, 1891.

Approved by the Mayor, April 18, 1891.

A true copy.

Attest :

JOSEPH O’KANE,
Clerk of the Common Council.

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT.

Monday, January 5, being the day appointed by law
for the organization of the city government for 1891,
the members elect of the Common Council assembled
in their chamber in the City Hall at 10 o’clock, A.M.
They were called to order by David F. Barry, Esq.,
the senior member elect, who was now entering upon
his twelfth year of service in the city government, and
were soon thereafter joined by the members of the
Board of Aldermen elect.

Hon. Nathan Matthews, Jr., the Mayor elect, accom¬
panied by the retiring Mayor, Hon. THOMAS N. Hart,
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the
Commonwealth, Hon. Walbridge A. Field, Sheriff JOHN
B. O’Brien, and Rev. Leighton Parks, Chaplain of the
day, entered the Common Council Chamber under
escort of the City Messenger, and took seats in the
convention.

After prayer by the Chaplain, the oaths of office
were administered to the Mayor elect by the Chief

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT.

6

Justice, and the Mayor administered the oaths to the
members of the Board of Aldermen and Common
Council elect.

The Mayor then delivered his inaugural address, after
which the convention was dissolved.

The Common Council thereupon proceeded to the
election of a President, and chose David F. Barry,
Esq., who had twice before occupied the honorable
position.

On assuming the chair, President Barry delivered the
address set forth in the following pages.

REMARKS

OF

DAVID F. BARRY,

PRESIDENT OF THE COMMON COUNCIL.

Gentlemen of the Common Council : I
thank you very heartily for selecting me as your
presiding officer for the year 1891. It is not
for me to tell you, who are assembled here
to-day, that it is only occasionally — that it can
be but once a year — this honor is bestowed
upon any citizen of the city of Boston elected
as a member of the Common Council. The
position I am in to-day is a very singular one.
I am the senior member of this body, it being
my twelfth consecutive year of service as a mem¬
ber of the Common Council of the city of Boston;
have been elected as president for my third term;
and it is the first time in the history of this city

REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY.

8

that the senior member of the Council has acted
as presiding officer, been a candidate for president,
and, having received the nomination, was elected
as its president. A motion, which it has al¬
ways been customary to make heretofore, for
the first time in the history of Boston has
not been made to-day, — that a committee of two
be appointed to escort the president to the chair.
Being the senior member, I was in the chair

when elected president, and of course the motion
was not required. Now, gentlemen, I don’t

desire to detain you very long. I know you

have listened with a good deal of patience to

the Mayor’s inaugural address, and for me at
this hour to deliver a long speech would not,
I feel, be in keeping with the occasion ; but I
desire to call the attention of the Council to a
few important matters.

OUR PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.

I would recommend to the Council, to provide
at an early day a sum sufficient — which has been

REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY.

9

asked for by the Directors of Public Institutions
— for a building in which to properly care
for the insane people who are located at Austin

Farm. By an act of the Legislature, cities and

towns are now required to care for their

own insane ; so that Boston, which heretofore has
had insane patients in State institutions, is required
to take them into its own keeping, and to build

institutions ample for their accommodation.

THE CITY HOSPITAL.

I would recommend that the Council pro¬
vide without delay for the enlargement of our
City Hospital. To-day we have an institution
which is overcrowded. They have had to use
the corridors to place cots in for the accom¬
modation of patients, and, as I understand, there
are at the present time four hundred and fifteen
patients in the hospital. The Legislature gave
to the city of Boston permission to take land
by the right of eminent domain for City Hos¬
pital purposes, and the Council should, at an

REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY.

10

early day, provide a sum sufficient to pur¬
chase the land which the trustees desire.
Further, it is very essential the Council
should pay some attention to the matter of
lighting the hospital by electric lights. I am
told by the trustees that the $29,000 required
for a plant would be readily saved in five years;
and the plant would then be in the hos¬
pital, able to run all the lights which would
be required, at the same time doing away
with the heavy heat produced from the gas
lights in warm weather, and also preventing the
burning up and exhaustion of the oxygen in the
air, which is the cause of a great deal of trouble
to the patients. Every member of the Council
knows that the windows cannot be kept open;
and such being the case, the use of gas lights,
consuming the oxygen in the air, has an un¬
healthy effect upon a sick person, which does
not exist in connection with the operation of
electric lights.

REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY.

11

ANNEX TO CITY HALL.

I would recommend that the Council take

action in relation to an annex to the City Hall;
and it would be well to instruct the City

Architect to draw suitable plans, in keeping

with the requirements, for an addition to City
Hall, so that when the time comes they can
be used for the work on the annex, and be
carried out in accordance with the proposed
design.

THE PARK DEPARTMENT.

I would ask for, and the Council should in¬
sist upon, the completion of the Charles-bank
improvement. From Craigie’s bridge to the
Cambridge-street bridge the work is now com¬
plete, and the Park Commissioners should
finish the block between Cambridge street
and the Union Boat Club House; because I
firmly believe, if there are to be any benefits
from parks which are to be enjoyed by the
poorer classes of people in our city, they will

REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY.

12

certainly accrue in a large measure from the
work being done along the Charles-river em¬
bankment. There are many poor people in the
older portions of our city who are unable to
incur the expense necessary to convey their
families out to West Roxbury Park in the
horse cars. Many of them have three, four,
five, and sometimes more, children, and it
would be a great deal better for them to use
the Charles-river embankment, as they do now,
especially of a summer’s evening, when any
gentleman of the Council who will visit the
Charles-river embankment can see thousands ol
our people there. There is no reason why,
with the loan ot $2,500,000 asked for by the
Park Commissioners, for which we are at the
present time about to petition the Legislature,
there should not be some definite understand¬
ing that the Park Commissioners will complete
the block 01 the Charles-river embankment be¬
tween Cambridge street and the Union boat¬
house.

REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY.

13

THE ROXBURY HIGH SCHOOL.

The City Council should, as soon as possible,
make an ample appropriation to complete the
Roxbury High School. When the English High
School was first proposed, there was a great deal
ot opposition to it. Some people believed the
school could not be filled. To-day our large
English High School located on Warren avenue
is crowded, and additional accommodations are
needed. More than one-halt the population ot
the city of Boston lives on the other side of the
line of Dover street, and I predict that in ten
years from to-day the Roxbury High School will
not be large enough to accommodate the pupils
ready to occupy it. At the present time its
masters have secured six buildings on the out¬
side for High School purposes, so the Council
will see it is very essential to attend to
this matter, and complete the school at as early a
day as possible.

REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY.

14

MT. HOPE CEMETERY.

Last year there was a most unjust and unwise
measure passed by the Legislature: to take away
from the city ot Boston property that stands the
city to-day, on the Auditor’s books, in value a
fraction less than $1,000,000. That property
consists ol one hundred and six acres or
ground. Up to the present time the city of
Boston has buried 32,000 paupers in the ceme¬
tery. An act of the Legislature, pushed through
by men who were anxious and desirous of getting
control of Mt. Hope Cemetery, was passed, which
provides that the city of Boston shall transfer all
its rights, title, and belongings in the cemetery to
the lot owners, in spite of the fact that the city
has expended such a large sum of money upon the
cemetery, and although we must have burial
ground for our pauper dead at the present time
and in the future. With one hundred acres
going to the lot owners, and six acres reserved
for the city’s poor, with 32,000 people buried in
six acres to-day, and with a necessity of burying

REMARKS OF DAVID F. BARRY.

15

every year from 1,200 to 1,500 paupers, we
would be in this position: that inside of three
years the City Council would have to buy
additional land in which to bury its dead poor.
But the wisdom of last year’s Council, irre¬
spective of party politics, was such that the
Council saw lit not to act upon the measure,
and it died in committee. I have no doubt the
same measure will be considered this year in
committee of the present government, but I
should recommend the Council to ask that the
act be annulled, and that the property still
remain in the hands of the City.

The Chair awaits the pleasure of the Council.

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